The Smaller Birds 
Of the “honey-tongued Boyet” it was 
remarked 
This fellow pecks up wit as pigeons pease 
And utters it again when God doth please.! 
And Hamlet, reflecting on his slowness to 
avenge his father’s murder, reproaches him- 
self as ‘‘ pigeon-liver’d and lacking gall.” ” 
I have reserved for the last section of 
this Essay the smaller birds, including the 
songsters, as these are noticed in Shake- 
speare’s Poems and Dramas. A number 
of them are grouped together by Bottom 
in the ditty, singing which he wakes the 
sleeping Fairy Queen : 
The ousel-cock so black of hue, 
With orange-tawny bill, 
The throstle with his note so true, 
The wren with little quill ; 
The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, 
The plain-song cuckoo gray, 
Whose note full many a man doth mark 
And dares not answer nay.? 
1 Love’s Labour's Lost, v. ii. 315. 7 Hamlet, 11. i. 572. 
3 Midsummer-Night’s Dream, 11. 1. 114, 
93 
